A Few Thoughts about E3 2021

Taken from E3.

Despite the fact that it did lost quite a bit of relevance in recent years, many people still anticipated E3 2021. Including myself, in a way. Obviously, I didn't have any specific expectations as 94% of the titles that get announced here are "out of my jurisdiction", but it's still often interesting to look at what comes out when it, well... interesting.

For example, only Metal Slug Tactics caught my attention during the opening of this years' Summer Game Fest. I really love the artstyle of this series ever since I've seen my dad playing one of the games from it (I don't remember which one it was) on original Xbox. There's still so many games to play, really. Here's yet another series in my "Should play it one day" list.

Ubisoft Forward.

There's nothing really good or intersting to talk about in regards to Ubisoft, but I'll take a moment to "admire" their ability to disappoint me even when I expected nothing from them. Although they met those expectations, that doesn't make the situation any better.

Of course, I'm talking about yet another year of ignoring Splinter Cell series. Although its great that it doesn't suffer from being put through current Ubisoft's "style of operations", getting milked via referrences & cameos in other games is as annoying as it was since the beginning. There's not any details on VR title and animated series either... Alright, I would like to leave all that for its own post.

Another thing is Rainbow Six Extraction. This new standalone Siege PvE mode (or whatever this is, I don't know or care) is "just there". I know that I'm extremely late to the party, but "fairly recently" I finally got to learn about the classic Rainbow Six games and its current fate makes me a bit sad. Still not sure if I would give them a go at some point, but its hard to deny that those tactical shooters have a certain appeal.

Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase.

Well, that's easily the highlight of this years' E3. Many interesting games were shown there: from S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl and Twelve Minutes to Psychonauts 2. Even though there's nothing much I could actually say about them as my opinion based on general feel I get from seeing these titles, I think its worth mentioning them positively.

I guess you can say that Starfield & Halo Infinite are the stars of the Showcase. First game finally got a teaser (that didn't really showed much) with a release date and Halo demonstrated some Multiplayer that's going to be Free to Play... Which doesn't sound bad, but, honestly, I skipped that part of Showcase because I was away from laptop getting myself a dinner. Also that new Arkane game, Redfall.

However, we did get a release date for Diablo 2: Resurrected: September 23, 2021. I've seen a few concerns and dissatisfaction with certain characters receiving a censorship in their Remastered form (which is something I agree with), but, besides that, things seem to be wonderful for Diablo 2 and that just makes me happy. I wish that the same could've been said about two other remasters of Blizzard games. We have to wait until its release in order to declare a victory in this battle. But the war is still far from over, despite previous loses.

I thought we would've got some news regarding Wolfenstein, DOOM and/or even Quake, but I suppose that id Software and others are saving all their cards for Quakecon at Home 2021. It is what it is. However, classic Fallout titles (+ Fallout 3), Arx Fatalis and DOOM 16 arriving to Xbox Game Pass is actually pretty damn neat.

SQUARE ENIX PRESENTS.

I'm not much of a Final Fantasy guy. Haven't really played any game in the series and wouldn't say I have any particular plans to, but the announcement of Pixel Remaster of the first six games in the series is pretty cool. From what I understand, it's very likely going to be more of a Definitive Edition type of thing, but who knows. It's weird that it was announced only for Steam and mobile platformes. No console release, not even Nintendo Switch... That's odd. But its "coming soon", so hey.

My reaction to Life is Strange Remastered Collection reveal at the time was "Why?" Why would you remaster 4-6 years old games instead of making some sort of graphical patch for them? They're not that old for such treatment and you don't need an excuse to address some of people's major complains, such as animations. First screenshots didn't reassure me in importance of this endeavor on top of the fact that I just didn't like what I've seen: the models and shading. Trailer that was shown on E3 only confirmed that the original Life is Strange and Before the Storm have a timeless art style, which is one of their strenghts. And I can't say the same about these "remasters".

As for the Life is Strange: True Colors, that game does look kind of interesting and it can be good. Full release in favor of episodes is an improvement on itself. Even though this whole deal with emotions, empathy and the way they present it does feel a bit forced and childish, which makes me cringe. I'll probably look at this game on YouTube after its release though, at the very least the first episode.

PC Gaming Show.

This one went in similar vein to Summer Game Fest's opening as there wasn't really anything interesting. Only game that actually interested me technically didn't appeared in the way. Gloomwood is one of the few games I'm actually waiting for and seeing these 5 minutes of gameplay  from (presumably) the start of the game was great. Step up in visuals is noticeable and gameplay looks as awesome as it was in the demo.

Five new titles from New Blood Interactive got sneaky teasers, so that's also something. Although Dave Oshry confirmed to PC Gamer that most of these games right now are in state of prototype, so its very unlikely we would hear anything about that CRPG anytime soon. But VR version of AMID EVIL and top-down "DOOM-like" shooter are real, so there's probably even more reasons to wait for Realms Deep 2021... Maybe.

Other than that... Steam Next Fest is coming. A lot of demos for upcoming games will be available to play, which is always sweet. 

Nintendo Direct.

Despite having only powered off Game Boy Advance SP with no working charger, I'm still interested in what's going on with Nintendo Switch from time to time. With many rumours and expectations all around the Internet, many expected a new revision of the console... It didn't happen. Honestly, that's not a big deal to me as I can't afford it either way. Maybe if I get lucky in next... I don't know, 10 years? Nothing much I can really say about the games... New Wariowave game is cool, I guess. Also surprised that The Ancient Gods Part 1 was just dropped like that. Personally, I expected some kind of "full collection" for DOOM Eternal on Nintendo Switch there.

I've only tried Super Metroid for a short moment & seen a bit of Metroid Prime, so I'm pretty sure that's it for my experience with that series. Not that I'm in a hurry to change that, but seeing an announcement of Metroid Dread was very interesting. It's always nice to see an iconic series returning to its roots. From what I understand, this game was initially announced long time ago and supposed to be released for Nintendo DS before getting cancelled for technical reasons. Rarely a title gets second chance like that, so that's another fun fact about this game.

Getting some more footage of a sequel for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was quite good. Things are still more or less mysterious here, but they aim for release in 2022 (no guarantee it will release that year). Original game is fantastic and kind of got me into the series, although my actual experience with it is still limited to A Link to the Past and Spirit Tracks. And seeing much more games in the series, of course.

Oh yeah, that Game & Watch system is neat. I'm just a dork that finds stuff like this very interesting for some reason, even if I'm admiring it through laptop screen. Probably not much different from Mario themed machine from technical side of things, but who knows... Some people will definitely do something crazy with those when they get to them. Besides that, having three classic The Legend of Zelda games in this form factor is cool on itself, I think... there's also edited Vermin, yeah.